Pubdate: Sun, 10 Jun 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

STATUS OF POT USE LIMITED

The Supreme Court Lets Stand a Ruling That Users Don't Have 
Constitutional Protection.

The state Supreme Court has declined to hear a case raising the key 
question underlying medical-marijuana law in Colorado: Does the state 
constitution guarantee a right to pot?

By declining to take up the case, the Supreme Court effectively has 
endorsed the decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals, which decided 
last year that medical-marijuana patients have no right to use 
cannabis. Instead, the Court of Appeals concluded, the constitution 
only protects legal patients from criminal punishment for their marijuana use.

The decision is devastating to medical-marijuana activists who had 
hoped the Supreme Court would affirm a right to marijuana.

"It was a very sad day for the patients in Colorado," activist 
Kathleen Chippi said. "I'm quite honestly speechless."

But the decision was a win for the Colorado attorney general's 
office, which has long said that Amendment 20- the medical-marijuana 
constitutional provision-only creates exemptions to criminal law.

"It does not create a constitutional right to consume marijuana," 
Attorney General John Suthers said. "The advocates, I think, have 
missed that over time."

The case - Beinor vs. Industrial Claim Appeals Office and Service 
Group Inc.- involved a medical-marijuana patient fired from his job 
after testing positive for pot, even though there was no evidence he 
was impaired at work. Beinor said he should be eligible for 
unemployment benefits because his marijuana use was protected under 
the state's constitution.

On the same day last week that the Supreme Court declined to hear 
Beinor's case, it also declined to hear the case of a man whom the 
Court of Appeals ruled should not be allowed to use medical marijuana 
while on probation because marijuana is illegal federally.

The two denials, activists say, imply that medical-marijuana patients 
have only limited protections under Colorado law. The rulings suggest 
that not only can patients be fired for medical marijuana use but 
that they could be denied gun permits, be kicked out of housing or 
lose custody of their children in child-welfare cases.

"The impact is overwhelming," Chippi said.

"I view it as callous and cold-hearted," said Brian Vicente, 
executive director of the marijuana-advocacy group Sensible Colorado.

The Supreme Court's decisions also mean that state laws limiting 
medical-marijuana caregivers or allowing communities to ban 
dispensaries likely will stand.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom